*By St. Krivtsov*

## I N T R O D U C T I O N .

The work of Vladimir Ilyich printed below belongs to the materials that depict the work of the social-democratic parliamentary representation under the leadership of the Central Committee of our party. In No. 3 (26) (pp. 226–239) of *Proletarskaya Revolyutsiya* for 1924, comrade G. I. Petrovsky published similar materials on the work of the 4th State Duma ("V. I. Lenin—Leader of the Bolshevik Fraction of the IV State Duma"); there are indications of such work in the correspondence of Vladimir Ilyich with Kollontai and Shlyapnikov, published in the second "Lenin Miscellany." Finally, in the "Draft Speech on the Agrarian Question" printed here, we have an example of the preparation of a speech by a representative of the party on the fundamental question of the Russian revolution. The deputy Aleksinsky, who belonged to the social-democratic Fraction of the 2nd State Duma, was to have delivered the speech written by Vladimir Ilyich.

The date of the writing of the speech should be considered as the period between March 21 and 25, 1907. March 19 was the first day of the agrarian debates. On that day occurred the speeches in the Duma upon which the present draft speech is based. Reports of these speeches appeared the next day in newspapers (in the text there is a reference to the report in the newspaper *Tovarishch*; furthermore, Vladimir Ilyich also refers to a letter to the editor of *Tovarishch* by the Trudovik deputy Karavaev in the March 21 issue). On March 26 the agrarian debates continued, but they found no reflection in the present draft. Aleksinsky's actual speech was delivered at the session of April 5 and was printed in the "Stenographic Reports of the State Duma of the Second Convocation," vol. I, pp. 1623–1640.

In summing up the agrarian debates in the 2nd State Duma at the end of 1907, Vladimir Ilyich wrote in his book *The Agrarian Program of Social-Democracy in the Russian Revolution of 1905–1907*, a book which saw light only in 1917, since the 1908 edition was completely confiscated at the printing house, the following about Aleksinsky's speech (Collected Works, vol. IX, 610–611): "The second [Aleksinsky] in an extensive speech clarified the serf-like character of the labor-service economy that predominated in Russia. The orator thus expounded the basis of Marxist views on the struggle of the peasantry against landlord landownership, then showed the dual role of the commune ('a relic of antiquity' and 'an apparatus for action against landlord estates'), the significance of the laws of November 9 and 15, 1906 (alongside the landlord to include the kulak as a 'mainstay'). The orator showed with figures in hand that 'peasant land hunger is noble land abundance,' and clarified that the Kadet 'compulsory' alienation is 'compulsion of the people in favor of the landlords' (1635). Aleksinsky directly referred to 'the Kadet organ *Rech*' (1639), which acknowledged Kadet truth about the landlord composition of the land committees desirable to them. And Kadet Tatarinov, who spoke at the session after Aleksinsky, was pressed to the wall by this, as we have already seen."

Let us compare the material which Vladimir Ilyich considered necessary to voice in the State Duma with what Aleksinsky actually said.

The difficulty of the task facing Vladimir Ilyich was complicated by intra-party relations. As is well known, in the social-democratic Fraction of the 2nd State Duma there were 36 Mensheviks and 18 Bolsheviks, twice fewer. It is also known that the Fourth Stockholm, unifying Congress adopted the Menshevik agrarian program of "municipalization of land." Vladimir Ilyich categorically disagreed with this program; therefore he avoided the question of municipalization in his speech.

The latter is divided into three parts.

Vladimir Ilyich first of all shows that in order to satisfy the land hunger of the peasantry it is necessary to take 70 million desyatinas of land from the landlords (a figure named by the Trudovik Karavaev); the landlords are putting up fierce resistance (the speech of Svyatopolk-Mirsky). The second question is how to take it: confiscation or redemption? In this part of the speech Vladimir Ilyich exposes the inconsistency and irresolution of the Kadets, showing that in essence their project of "compulsory alienation" will be compulsion of the peasants in favor of the landlords. And finally, the third question: who should control the land, in whose hands should the land committees be—in the hands of the majority of the laboring population or in the hands of the landlords, as the Kadets propose.

If Vladimir Ilyich mercilessly exposes the class egoism of the Black Hundred landlords and their Europeanized colleagues among the Kadets, one cannot fail to notice how skillfully he transitions to methods of persuasion in explaining the errors of the peasants and Trudoviks. (See the end of the speech.) And this is no accident. It is well known that already in the first revolution (1905–1907) Vladimir Ilyich upheld the idea of an "alliance of workers and peasants" for carrying out the agrarian revolution.

Incidentally, Vladimir Ilyich gives detailed calculations of the future area of peasant land use, which according to his calculations would double or even triple for the majority of peasants, and he subjects to criticism the utopian dreams of the Trudoviks about the elimination right now of commodity relations in the village: the elimination of commodity relations can only be accomplished by socialism. With this the speech ends.

How then did Aleksinsky make use of the material proposed to him? Part of the material fell away because a number of questions had already been dealt with by the social-democratic speakers who preceded Aleksinsky. Enough had already been said about Svyatopolk-Mirsky by Tsereteli and especially by Fomichev (therefore Aleksinsky occupied himself with Count Stenbock-Fermor); the essence of the redemption (which the landlords carried out in 1861) was depicted in detail in his speech by the s.-d., Bolshevik Serov, which is why this moment also fell away. From Lenin's draft speech Aleksinsky took the characterization of labor-service agriculture, which predominated in Russia at that time, and pointed out that the Kadet "compulsory alienation" was in essence compulsion of the people in favor of the landlords; from the detailed numerical material he used only the contrast of 135,000 landlords each with 600 desyatinas to 12,250,000 peasant homesteads each having some 11 desyatinas or more, emphasized the landlord character of the land committees according to the Kadet project, and called for the unification of the left forces.

Upon comparing the speech delivered by Aleksinsky with Vladimir Ilyich's draft, it turns out that Aleksinsky substantially altered the character of the speech, directing its thrust against Stolypin's agrarian policy and his destruction of the commune, something which Vladimir Ilyich did not touch upon at all in his draft. Therefore Aleksinsky's speech bore more of a "denunciatory" character than a political one. Whereas Vladimir Ilyich most attentively unfolds a picture of possible peasant land use upon carrying out the confiscation of all landlord lands, giving concrete numerical material for this land use and thereby supporting the Trudoviks, Aleksinsky completely failed to engage with this question. For this same reason Aleksinsky does not dwell on the relationship between peasants and workers—this central point of Bolshevik tactics. His criticism of Kutler lacks the depth which Vladimir Ilyich gives.

Summing up the statements of eight social-democratic orators on the agrarian question, Vladimir Ilyich in the work mentioned above says the following: "The social-democrats decisively defended the cause of the peasant revolution, clarified the class character of the contemporary state power, but were not able to consistently lead the peasant revolution, owing to the erroneousness of the party's agrarian program" (Collected Works, vol. IX, 613), i.e., the Menshevik program of "municipalization" put forward by them in opposition to the program of "nationalization" upheld by Lenin.

*St. Krivtsov.*